Mar 3, 2009
A Couple Of Safari 4 Interface Hacks
Still loving Safari 4 BETA – although despite the blinding speed, Top Sites and overall Coverflow sexiness etc, those UI tweaks of putting the tabs at the very top of the app, and also losing the progress bar in favour of the little twirly device are really still getting on my tits a stupid amount.
Short of actually just getting over it and chilling out – which I think we all know isn’t going to happen – I should thank Gordon for sending on a couple of Terminal hacks to set these right.
I don’t often use the terminal I must admit – but occasionally it’s a very useful last resort; particularly if you’ve got a hack or command passed on or recommended by a reliable source (and these ones I believe come from MacFixit.com which is pretty much as good as it gets).
So, firstly, you can reinstate the tabs where they used to be by typing / copying this into the Terminal:
defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4TabBarIsOnTop -bool NO
and the progress bar can be reinstated by typing in / copying this:
defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4IncludeToolbarRedesign -bool NO
defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4LoadProgressStyle -bool NO
It’s important to note that the progress bar hack will leave you without the Cancel / Reload button – but if you’re happy to do those with simple keyboard shortcuts (Apple and full-stop for Cancel, Apple and R for Reload) then it’s no great loss.
The progress bar is a very useful piece of UI – it not only indicates activity but shows you what kind of activity is going on (or indeed is NOT going on). If the progress bar is stuck at some point across a web address then this is actually telling you what the problem is. For example if it’s stuck over the http: bit it’s a protocol problem, whilst if it’s over the page name, then it’s a problem with that page or elements on it. Not a lot of people know that.
Hope these are useful and thanks to Gordon and MacFixit for spreading the hacks.
